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There are some major updates on the bizarre Lady Gaga dognapping case that resulted in her dog walker Ryan Fischer getting rushed to the hospital with life threatening gunshot wounds. LAPD announced Thursday, April 29th that a total of 5 people have been arrested in connection to the case, including the woman who called to return the dogs.
Because of the shooting, the charges are not light and on Tuesday police arrested James Jackson, 18, Jaylin White, 19; and Lafayette Whaley, 27, on suspicion of attempted murder, conspiracy to commit robbery, and second-degree robbery. Jaylin’s father, 40-year-old Harold White, and the woman who returned the dogs, 50-year-old Jennifer McBride were also arrested on suspicion of accessory attempted murder. LAPD believes Harold called McBride and recruited her to drop off the dog and claim the half a million dollars, per TMZ.
Investigators don’t believe that the suspects knew the pooches belonged to Gaga and were taking the dogs because of the value of French Bulldogs, which can be worth thousands, especially if they are pure bred.
The terrifying incident occurred on February 24th and footage of the dog heist went viral. The video captures Gaga’s dog walker walking all three of her Frenchies before he is approached by 2 men who jump out of white sedan. A struggle ensues before they fire one single shot. Fischer can be heard screaming, “Oh, my God! I’ve been shot!” and “Help me!” and “I’m bleeding out from my chest!” As the men fled with two of the French bulldogs, Koji and Gustav.
In a heartbreaking post to instagram, Fischer detailed how he cradled the third dog named Asia, “as best I could, thanked her for all the incredible adventures we’d been on together, apologized that I couldn’t defend her brothers, and then resolved that I would still try to save them… and myself.”
The Oscar winning actress was filming “House of Rome” in Italy at the time and offered a “no questions asked” $500,000 reward. Three days later McBride called LAPD to report that she found the dogs tied to a pole in an alley miles away from where they were stolen. At the time, police thought the woman was just a good samaritan but became suspicious of McBride and advised the pop star not to pay the reward, per TMZ.
Online jail records show all five were each being held on $1 million bails.